A powerful drama western originally released in second-feature about an escaped robber sticking to its theme of redemption and pardon, the film is made in small-scale but results to be pretty good. As a thief, Fred MacMurray, in custody, becomes the most wanted when his younger sibling kills a sheriff. He gets away to a frontier town to begin a new life in anonymity, but soon finds himself drawn to a beautiful widow, Dorothy Green. Besides, he is increasingly involved in standing up with a local land baron, while his henchmen, James Coburn, doing the dirty work. Along the way the undercover gunfighter becomes a deputy, assisting the local sheriff, Lin MacCarthy.
Above average entry in western genre dealing with the issue of the redemption of a gunslinger and including an interesting script that refuses to be side-tracked into extranerous action. There is some prison motif which is repeated across the movie, adding the title credits unfold over a sketch of the most wanted man, dead or alive. Fred MacMurray gives a good acting as a career safecracker wrongly suspected of killing who takes off the bullying cattle king who attempts to carry out close range. Fred McMurray's apparent decency brings him acceptance but his past may yet catch up with him. Acceptable support cast as Lyn McCarthy as the tough as well as green sheriff, at the same time being a fanatically fair person. And Dorothy Green plays his sister and widow who falls for MacMurray. Look out to for the smiling youthful James Coburn as a nasty hoodlum, clearly proving his promising presence , before his successful appearance in Magnificent seven by John Sturges.
The movie is powered along by a nice cinematography by Wilfred Cline showing barren backgrounds and foregrounds, ruined buildings, and adequate outdoors. As well as an a thrilling and enterprising early musical score from Jerry Goldsmith in the day when he was still billed Jerrald Goldsmith.
This absorbing and spare picture was well directed by Paul Wendkos, making an acceptable second-feature western in rare economy. Paul was a fine craftsman who directed a lot of films as cinema as TV. He directed all kinds of genres, as drama, thriller, action, WWII, comedy, Mafia movie, such as Deadline assault, The flight, The chase, The great escape : the untold story, The story of a Mafia wife, Celebrity, The cry for love ,Betrayal, A woman called Moses, The tattered web, The Mephisto Walz, Johnny Tiger, Bad seed, The taking of flight 847, The execution, Awakening of Candra , Gidget, Gidget goes Hawaiian, Gidget goes to Rome. And Westerns as Guns of Magnificent Seven, The ordeal of Dr Mudd, The face of the fugitive, among others
Above average entry in western genre dealing with the issue of the redemption of a gunslinger and including an interesting script that refuses to be side-tracked into extranerous action. There is some prison motif which is repeated across the movie, adding the title credits unfold over a sketch of the most wanted man, dead or alive. Fred MacMurray gives a good acting as a career safecracker wrongly suspected of killing who takes off the bullying cattle king who attempts to carry out close range. Fred McMurray's apparent decency brings him acceptance but his past may yet catch up with him. Acceptable support cast as Lyn McCarthy as the tough as well as green sheriff, at the same time being a fanatically fair person. And Dorothy Green plays his sister and widow who falls for MacMurray. Look out to for the smiling youthful James Coburn as a nasty hoodlum, clearly proving his promising presence , before his successful appearance in Magnificent seven by John Sturges.
The movie is powered along by a nice cinematography by Wilfred Cline showing barren backgrounds and foregrounds, ruined buildings, and adequate outdoors. As well as an a thrilling and enterprising early musical score from Jerry Goldsmith in the day when he was still billed Jerrald Goldsmith.
This absorbing and spare picture was well directed by Paul Wendkos, making an acceptable second-feature western in rare economy. Paul was a fine craftsman who directed a lot of films as cinema as TV. He directed all kinds of genres, as drama, thriller, action, WWII, comedy, Mafia movie, such as Deadline assault, The flight, The chase, The great escape : the untold story, The story of a Mafia wife, Celebrity, The cry for love ,Betrayal, A woman called Moses, The tattered web, The Mephisto Walz, Johnny Tiger, Bad seed, The taking of flight 847, The execution, Awakening of Candra , Gidget, Gidget goes Hawaiian, Gidget goes to Rome. And Westerns as Guns of Magnificent Seven, The ordeal of Dr Mudd, The face of the fugitive, among others